


Pretty Picture

by FaintlyMacabre



Series: Faintly Does Kinktober 2020 [4]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Body Image, Gen, Junoverse | Juno Steel Universe, Lingerie, Man vs. Machine, No Sex, Other, Sexting, if nothing else I made myself laugh, or Lady vs. Tech. whichever you prefer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:15:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26878021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaintlyMacabre/pseuds/FaintlyMacabre
Summary: Nureyev's off on assignment, so Juno decides to send him something Nice.Things don't always go the way Juno decides.
Relationships: Mick Mercury & Juno Steel, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: Faintly Does Kinktober 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956079
Kudos: 41





	Pretty Picture

**Author's Note:**

> Fourth prompt from ellobean's Kinktober list: photography/nudes. It's "not rated" because nothing terribly shocking happens (sorry), but I didn't think I could in good conscience put a "T" rating on a Kinktober fic?? 
> 
> Here there be Text Messages! They are bolded and separated from the prose with page breaks, and outgoing messages are denoted by a bullet. It took me an absurdly long time to figure out something that a. wouldn't screw with formatting too much and b. would still be not-terrible to read if you couldn't load images. I really hope this fits both criteria!
> 
> CW: mentions of past self-hatred, mild secondhand embarrassment

He is going to figure this out himself, goddamn it. There is no one on this fucking ship he ever in a million years would or could ask for help with this. Well, there’s Nureyev, except there isn’t, because _he’s_ currently planetside with Jet. Also, that would kind of defeat the purpose of this whole endeavor.

Maybe it would have been better to figure out the actual mechanics of the thing before getting all dressed up—well. So to speak. It just sucks that he got into the cute bra and underwear, sultry makeup, the earrings Nureyev gave him, and the whole, like, _mood_ , only to remember that he has no idea how to take a picture on his stupid comms.

It shouldn’t be difficult, right? It should be intuitive? But there’s a row of buttons on each side, and then the touch screen on top of that. He’ll be here all goddamn night trying to figure this out. God knows he’s stubborn enough, or he used to be, anyway. Used to be able to stay up the whole stupid night, but he’s trying to get healthy now, and honestly, he’s getting old. The stupid shit he could do at 25 or whatever is decidedly off the menu. So. He’s got something of a deadline.

He gets to his contacts, a bunch of old takeout menus, his list of passwords, and some very colorful, very _loud_ stream that Rita must have been watching on here _for some reason_ because he manages to play it from mid-chase-scene just by opening it, before he finds the camera. But hey, sometimes brute force works.

It takes a few tries before he realizes that while he’s not a fan of the shots he’s taken by pointing the comms at himself, taking pictures in the mirror actually works pretty well. He bites his lip, considering, aims the camera to frame the lower half of his face and chest. The lipstick he’s wearing matches the rich plum of his lingerie, and the bronze chandelier earrings catch the lamplight really nicely. It’s a good shot.

“Take that, technology,” Juno mutters without really meaning to, and if he feels kind of stupid for it, no one has to know.

Okay, that was a solid warm-up. Time to get serious. Luckily, his room is small enough that he can take a decent shot in the mirror even if he’s sitting on the bed. He takes a photo with one knee crossed over the other that comes out all right, but it’s a little less risqué than he really wants. If he were going for subtle, he’d just send a text.

He gets up on the bed properly now and kneels up. Hmm. Spreads his knees a little more. Yeah, that’s not bad. The first shot he takes in this pose has him backlit and he has to shuffle around to catch the light the right way, but when he does? Goddamn. He looks good. He looks really fucking good, and posing like this for the camera, for Nureyev, actually _feels_ good.

See, Juno knows he looks good, and he's pretty much always cleaned up nice. For a long time, though, making an effort wasn’t really a priority. Rita didn’t care what he looked like, as long as he was alive and not too injured, and most other people he met on a daily basis were going to be shitty no matter what, so why bother? Wasn’t it enough that he showered and put on clean clothes most days? It was easier, too, to minimize the impetus to look in the mirror. Fresh coat of lipstick’s just not enough to distract from how much you hate yourself, you know?

Lately, he’s actually been able to face himself in the mirror and _like_ what he sees. And yeah, he’s doing this for Nureyev, but he’s also kind of doing it for himself. Hell, maybe he’ll do this again sometime with a real camera, not to send the pictures, but just to take them.

The longer he poses, the more natural it feels. He slips a bra strap off his shoulder and tilts his head to let an earring lay against his neck. He sits back on his heels, letting the light spill over his thighs, snaps another picture. After a while, he figures he has enough to work with, so he picks one of his favorites and goes to send it off.

Here’s where it goes to shit.

He’s back in his contacts, doesn’t even need to scroll. Most of the people he knows, he lives with. So this should be the easiest thing in the world. This is what he’s thinking just before he realizes that his thumb must have been _just_ a hair too high on the screen, because the name he hits isn't "Ransom." It's "Mercury."

And then the message is gone.

“No, no, no, no, no—” There’s no undo button. Why is there no goddamn undo button? Maybe if he smashes his comms—? No, that’s no good. It’s already en route. “Oh no, oh fuck.”

No. The _old_ Juno Steel would spiral, the _new_ Juno Steel… is very close to spiraling. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

_No_ , focus. There’s only one thing to do now: damage control.

* * *

  * **DELETE THAT**



-

  * **MIKC**



-

  * **DO NOT OPEN THAT PICTRE DO NOT LOOK AT IT**



-

  * **IT WAS FOR SOMEONE ELSE. I DIDN’T MEAN TO SEND IT TO YOU**



-

  * **MERCURY DO NOT**



-

  * **I SWEAR TO GOD, MICK**



* * *

The reply comes after maybe the tenth text.

* * *

**J? whats goin on**

  * **MICK! Do not open that picture I sent you, it was an accident**



**what picture?**

  * **The first message. Look, if you haven’t seen it, just delete it**



**theres no picture, first message is blank**

  * **Oh my god are you sure??**



-

  * **NO don’t check, just delete it just in case**



**you know if theres no picture attached to a message, it wont show up later, right, J?**

  * **Please just delete it, it’ll make me feel better**



**sure**

-

**its gone**

  * **THANK YOU**



* * *

Juno is suddenly exhausted, so much so that he doesn’t notice for a few minutes that he has a new message.

* * *

**Good night. I love you**

  * **Yeah, whatever, love you too Mick**



**“Mick?”**

  * **RANSOM. You will not believe the night I’ve had**



**?**

  * **I’ll tell you when you’re back. I don’t trust my comms**



**Do you think you’ve been hacked???**

  * **No, it just hates me**



**So, you don’t trust YOURSELF with your comms?**

  * **...shut up**



**Sleep well, darling <3**

  * **You too <3**



* * *

Juno smiles at the screen, then glares at the screen, then flops back onto the bed. In a minute, he’ll get up and wash off the makeup, take out the earrings, and literally slip into something more comfortable. Right now, though? Right now, he’ll take a minute to recover. Maybe he’ll even let himself off the hook for this whole mess. That sounds like something the new Juno Steel would do.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like Juno would have Nureyev in his comms as "Ransom" just in case it fell into The Wrong Hands. Meaning, literally anyone else's hands.
> 
> Thank you for reading! This is probably not _really_ in the spirit of Kinktober, but *shrugs vehemently*


End file.
